Saturday, March 31, 2012

Do you forget to check bookmarked pages? Here are fresh updates from my Pages2rss feed for the Manzano Mountain Art Council website. If this displays well, I'll have my easy solution to arts council updates from home. Please note and applaud manzanomountainartcouncil.org as the listed url. Who could be happier than I to see it?

Walking Tour BrochureLook for our new Community Art Sites brochure that will soon be around town and on this website. It will map and describe art mosaics, murals, and other art treasures that local artists and volunteers have created for Mountainair.Click here to see our priorities for the year and what you can do to help.

UC Berkeley associate dean, Chicano literary critic, and NM native Genaro Padilla will be delivering a talk tomorrow. His book "The Daring Flight of My Pen" was recently awarded an honorable mention by MLA. The talk poster is attached and information is below. There will be a reception following the talk.

Every issue I check to see if any Mountainair entity ~ town, chamber, local business, arts council, farmer market, community garden, school district, service or cultural organization ~has registered a Centennial event or project, Still nothing. Maybe next month...

Centennial commemoration activities underway statewide

2012 has been a memorable commemoration year for New Mexico thus far -- and we thank communities statewide for their grand participation. All 33 counties have been busy planning and putting on events, which will heat up this spring and summer. Highlights coming up include:

I'm pleased to announce a new educational opportunity from NMFOG! Register now for our May 18 seminar on public records and open meetings laws and find out what you need to know about public access to government.

Hear about the latest developments in case law and learn how to make ethical decisions about public access from FOG Hotline attorneys Martin R. Esquivel, Charles R. Peifer, Charles "Kip" Purcell, Robert M. White and Gregory P. Williams, with Kent Walz.

The class qualifies for six Continuing Legal Education credits(including one ethics/professionalism credit) but will be useful for public officials, journalists, students and community members. For the full agenda and to register, click on the link below.

Friday, March 23, 2012

~ that is to say, the April Calendar for Mountain Arts On Broadway + what's left of March that did not get posted in a timely manner. You can also check the Manzano Mountain Art Council web site for event information, pictures, and much more.

What can I say? Oops? Anybody who has never sent announcements to post late, in unusable files, without reminders, etc. speak right up. Or just hold my check. What check? We're working on streamlining process, getting bugs out (I miss getting more than I miss posting) and the whole online presence, digital footprint thing.

Celebrate with this marvelous mid-century homage to Earth’s lifeblood.
Between 1957 and 1963, The Doubleday Book Clubs published a series of illustrated anthologies entitled Best in Children’s Books. Each of the few dozen numbered volumes contained a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, blending old works by established authors and artists with new works by emerging ones. The series is a treasure-trove of obscure gems by artists who eventually became cultural icons — from young Andy Warhol’s vibrantdrawings to Maurice Sendak’s little-known Velveteen Rabbit illustrations.

To celebrate World Water Day today, here is Plink Plink! — an utterly delightful story about water’s all-important role in our world, written and illustrated by Ethel and Leonard Kessler in 1954, and published in Best in Children’s Books Volume 12.

Though the volume — which also features John Tenniel’s original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — is sadly out of print, you can snag a used copy with some dedicated rummaging online.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It’s cool and comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up

Too late to address issues, reportA double repost (re-re-post or post²?): Stephen Downes from OLDaily commenting on, eulogizing Brittanica and the encyclopedia tradition and revolutionary concept while annotating Battles' own eulogy for the venerable Brittanica in Harvard's Metalab. (Take note: this is how to write a eulogy worthy of the name and the eulogized)

As the Encyclopedia Britannica ceases print publication, it is worth keeping in mind that the concept of the encyclopedia began as a philosophical exercise, with Denis Diderot and the French Encyclopédie. It was from the beginning a social and political project:

"The ecclesiastical party detested the Encyclopédie because it gave a voice to materialistic and atheistic philosophers. The French aristocracy felt threatened by the promotion of concepts such as religious tolerance, freedom of thought, and the value of science and industry, and the assertion that the well-being of the common people ought to be the main purpose of a government. A belief arose that the Encyclopédie was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, whose dangerous ideas were now being openly published."

But today, "by the twentieth century, encyclopedism's grand epistemological project had been black-boxed, dumbed down, and commodified for aspirant middlebrow readers, the disruptive ambition of Diderot sold door to door. As a project, the encyclopedia was bracing and grand; as product, EB was just another widget courting obsolescence." The move to digital isn't just the surrender of the paper form. It is also a surrender of hegemony over knowledge, of the preeminence of a single 'Britannic' world view, of a world as empire and people as subjects.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

This series created on Storify takes a look at other farmers markets in other parts of the country and other countries ... what they are doing, ideas and best practices to bring home to Mountainair, file in the Tomorrow File and think about for Mountainair Farm and Garden Market.

That's right, it's time to shake your Burque Bop! This Friday, March 16th, at 6 pm, guitar virtuoso Darin Goldston of the Memphis P. Tails, will be playing explosive and authentic Texas in-your-face-blues!

PS: Since we think that you and the kids might work up a rockin' appetite, we're bringing the Food Trucks over to keep your bellies full.

Visit "Musings" and "Iterations"

Our exciting March exhibits are open Monday-Saturday, until the 29th of March.

"Musings," features Joel-Peter Witkin, Cynthia Cook, Thomas F. Barrow, Sage Dawson, Rachel Cox, John Photos and other New Mexican artists sharing works that have inspired their careers along with pieces of their own work.

"Iterations" is a collection of fractal-inspired artworks by Escuela del Sol Montessori elementary students. The children explore fractals in nature and through art process as they create their own unique imaginative pieces.

Note: This week's spring break hours are 10 am - 2 pm.

Sign up for spring Art Classes

Are you ready to jump feet first in to these amazing March and April arts classes? Sign up before it's too late! These upcoming classes feature some of our favorite teachers.Sign up for these March & April classesIntroduction to drawingHigh Fiber: coiling, knotting, plaiting, crochet and stitchingEtchingColored Pencil WorkshopFabric and Yarn DyeingPortraitureJapanese-style Woodblock Printing

We've published a book!

Last week we received our newest poetry anthology hot off the presses. Not only is "How to: multiple perspectives on creating a garden, a life, relationships, and community" full of inspiring and grounding poetry, it is also gorgeous to look at.

I recommend that you mark this date on your calendars - Saturday April 21st at 3 pm - and plan to attend our Book Release party. The weekend of Earth Day could hardly be a more fitting time to celebrate this anthology, steeped as it is in the wisdom of artists who love the land.